With the large number of mines laid around the world, the protection of personnel involved in military operations, military demining and humanitarian demining against antipersonnel (AP) mines is exceedingly important. The design of protective footwear is particularly challenging. Test procedures for protective footwear are not well established and many of the current evaluation tools for protective footwear are complex, expensive to manufacture, show poor repeatability, give poor prediction of injury outcome or have strong ethical considerations.
There are a number of test methods that have been or are currently used around the world to evaluate protective boots for personnel involved in operations where mines may be located. These are listed below along with problems and/or limitations associated with each method.
1. Non-frangible leg. A non-frangible surrogate provides only indirect prediction of injury. The fracturing of a leg and the disruption of tissue influence performance of a protection system, and such events will not be captured by a non-frangible system.
2. Biological surrogates. These surrogates create a biohazard, do not provide an accurate representation of human bone and there is a variability of geometrical and mechanical properties.
3. Cadaver testing. This type of testing creates a biohazard and there is a variability of geometrical and mechanical properties. Moreover, ethical issues exist for this type of testing, and the expense and availability limit such testing.
4. Complex, biofidelic, frangible surrogate legs, i.e. the existing frangible synthetic legs. Such legs are expensive and complex.